President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was ordering officials to pay Transportation Security Administration officers despite Congress’s failure to appropriate funds, claiming emergency powers to act during the congressional stalemate.
“Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Therefore, I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation.”
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about what legal authority Trump was employing for his order.
The move sidesteps Congress as millions of air travelers face record security delays, largely because of staffing problems at TSA. It follows more than five weeks of gridlock on Capitol Hill that have left TSA officers working without pay, prompting some to call out and triggering widespread disruptions as millions of Americans travel for spring break. The chaos at airports has intensified pressure on Capitol Hill and at the White House to resolve the impasse over the Department of Homeland Security budget.
Democrats have refused to fund DHS unless Republicans accept new limits on federal immigration agents — including requiring judicial warrants to enter private property, restricting operations near schools and hospitals, and barring agents from wearing masks.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said Thursday night that he gave Trump credit for taking action to pay TSA agents more than 40 days after much of DHS shut down. He did not say whether he would keep senators in Washington to continue negotiating or send them home for a scheduled two-week recess.
“Obviously it takes the immediate pressure off, but it’s a short-term solution,” Thune told reporters.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) praised Trump on the Senate floor for moving to pay TSA agents and urged Democrats to work with Republicans to “fund the rest of DHS to fully protect our homeland.”
Thune had outlined Trump’s plan to Republican senators in a closed-door lunch earlier in the day, according to four people familiar with his comments who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-Louisiana) said that Senate Republicans were told at the lunch that the White House had decided to move forward with unilateral action, but that he later spoke with White House officials and was told that was not accurate.
He lamented the lack of a strategy.
“I think part of the problem that we have in the Senate Republican Conference is we’ve got a whole lot of chefs, and they apparently don’t know what they’re doing,” Kennedy told reporters.
Trump this week rejecteda potential deal over proposed restrictions on immigration agents, and he has repeatedly looked for ways to strong-arm the Democrats into folding. On Sunday, he wrote on social media that Republicans should not “make any deal” until Democrats support the voting bill known as the Save America Act, which Senate Democrats unanimously oppose. That same day, he ordered ICE agents to deploy to major airports to help manage security lines, but the effort has done little to alleviate delays.
Trump also called Thune on Thursday morning to insist that he get rid of the Senate filibuster, the senator told reporters. Thune has repeatedly ruled out scrapping the filibuster rules, which set a 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation. Republicans control the Senate, 53-47, forcing them to secure the votes of at least seven Democrats to pass legislation to reopen DHS.
Democrats have also pledged to use the filibuster to block the Save America Act, a voting bill that Trump has demanded the Senate pass. The bill would require Americans to prove their U.S. citizenship when they register to vote and to show photo identification to vote, among other provisions.
Democratic and Republican senators have been negotiating with the White House for more than a month on a deal to reopen DHS. The intensity of the talks has picked up this week, with the two sides trading proposals.
Senate Republicans offered this week to strip the bill of funding for the ICE division charged with arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants, known as Enforcement and Removal Operations. Their proposal would fund the rest of the agency. Democrats rejected that because it did not include the restrictions on ICE they have been seeking.
On Thursday, Senate Republicans sent Democrats what Thune described as Republicans’ “last and final” offer.
“They need to end the shutdown immediately, or we’ll have to take some very drastic measures,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Thursday.
Any deal that Senate Republicans and the White House strike with Democrats would also need to pass the House.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) did not commit Thursday to putting legislation on the House floor along the lines of what Senate Republicans have proposed.
“Leader Thune is in a terrible situation because he has Chuck Schumer and the Democrats over there refusing to take care of business and do their job,” Johnson told reporters, referring to the Senate minority leader.
Kadia Goba contributed to this report.
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